5G will be an incredibly heavy sale in 2019

While the avalanche of the announcements looked different, today is the first day of Mobile World Congress 2019 and apart from the ambitious, strange and sophisticated new handsets another big topic for the show 5G.

Meanwhile, almost all major carriers have already deployed 5G networks and with the announcement of the Galaxy S10 5G a new 5G modem from Qualcomm and even more 5G enabled phones that will follow on MWC, it feels as though we achieved a critical mass for 5G momentum.

5G is intended to highlight the 5th generation of mobile communications, and thus tech companies have highly promised what mobile networks could offer in the not-too-distant future. It's about mobile data speeds that may exceed 1 Gbps, latencies of less than five or ten milliseconds, and networks that are robust enough to handle the rapidly growing number of IoT devices.

But before HAM focuses on 5G technology This year, there are three big things that make me feel bearish for 5G by 2020.

5G is barely available

The first problem is the limited availability of 5G networks. It is true that depending on where you live you might be lucky enough to have a 5G coverage in your area. If you look at the list of 5G-range cities outside of places like New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and a handful of subway areas in Texas, there are very few 5G signals. (Just take a look at these maps to see where the 5G cover really is.) In fact, Sprint currently has no 5G coverage and will start from scratch starting 5G in nine markets from May.

AT & T is doing better with 12 cities that have a kind of 5G coverage. However, if you read carefully, it is important to know that even AT & T says that 5G + (which for AT & T is the nickname for real 5G) is only available in "selected areas" in those locations. Translation: You should not expect reliable 5G coverage, even if you are in those locations. So you need to find out if your home is covered and other places you visit frequently to make sure you fully utilize the 5G experience.

Verizon started late last year with the introduction of 5G hotspots Designed for residential use while also expanding its mobile infrastructure to prepare for the arrival of 5G enabled phones in 2019. Currently, Verizon's In-Home 5G is available in "limited areas" or in LA, Sacramento, Houston, Indianapolis.

Although already announced in August 2018, there is still no official information as to when the 5G Moto Mod will be available. Image: Motorola

Due to T-Mobile's disdain for Verizon and AT & Ts 5G pucks, the freight forwarder refused to omit the production of 5G hotspots and instead use 5G in a 600 MHz spectrum. Unlike AT & T's and Verizon's preferred millimeter-wave 5G installations, the T-Mobile Low Frequency 5G offers better range and signal penetration in buildings. However, these advantages are associated with the disadvantage that low-band can not quite reach the data rate of 1 Gbit / s or the super-fast latency which many people consider with regard to the possible advantages of 5G. And while the company has promised to bring 5G to 30 cities by the end of the year, even T-Mobile itself admits it will not have a nationwide 5G mark by 2020.

5G phones will be overpriced

The second concern for 5G is the money you need to spend upgrading your technology. If you're not the unicorn who bought a Moto Z3 last year, hoping to be the first kid with a 5G mod, everyone who's even thinking about the 5G mobile needs to buy a new phone. At least that means spending at least $ 500 on a new phone, plus the cost of the Moto 5G mod.

If You're Thinking About Buying a 'More Traditional' 5G Model For a phone that does not need separate attachments, consider the following: Already in December, OnePlus founder Carl Pei said he expected that The company's upcoming 5G phone will receive a $ 200- $ 300 premium over a regular 4G LTE phone. That's a lot of extra dough that you can spend for some misty benefits on a phone.

How much do you want to pay to see a 5G icon in your phone's notification bar? Photo: Sam Rutherford (Gizmodo)

Although Samsung has quoted prices for the new Galaxy S10E ($ 750), the $ 900 S10 (+ $ 1,000) S10 +, and the painfully expensive Galaxy Fold ($ 2,000) , Samsung offered no prices for the Galaxy S10 5G. But if we take a rough look and use the S10 + $ 1,000 prize as a starting point, consider the S10 5G's huge 6.7-inch screen, its two depth cameras, and its all-important 5G modem and its antennas. We'll take a look a phone that could easily cost $ 1,500 or more.

For LG's V50 5G, this is a similar situation since LG was announced, but neither LG nor Sprint (the first 5G carrier of the V50) have announced prices for the phone It seems like the phone manufacturers know this Phones will be difficult to move due to the inclusion of 5G. Both LG and Samsung added things to their 5G phones, such as depth-sensing cameras or two-screen accessories to increase their value

In short, anyone who wants to buy a 5G phone in 2019 has to burn more than $ 1,000 And that's not even the idea of ​​whether 5G phone plans are likely to cost more than normal, which the carriers have not talked about yet.

The coolest applications of 5G do not exist yet.

After all, speed is not worth the effort for most people. At least not yet. Because one of the promises of 5G is the ability to have all sorts of devices, such as drones, cars with cellular phones, televisions, etc., all of which are constantly connected so they can communicate over a super-fast wireless network. The problem is that all these different 5G devices and 5G apps are not really there yet.

If you now want to connect a 5G phone to a 5G network that operates at full speed, what would that really bring you? You probably could download a lot of movies and music quickly, but if you think about streaming, it's not that there's a wealth of 4K content.

Samsung's 5G MLB demo app was cool, but not something that this can still be replicated in scale. Photo: Sam Rutherford (Gizmodo)

At Samsung's booth at the MWC, the company demonstrated a S10 5G that dropped from a supposed 5G live network that featured a stream of an MLB game in which You could control the video feed from a number of different cameras. It's a neat application of the massive bandwidth that 5G offers, and allows you to switch from the camera behind the home plate to one at the first base. But the app was a one-off creation, something no baseball fan can get by just buying a 5G phone.

And with the possibility of a latency of less than 10ms on 5G, you can possibly play multiplayer games like PUBG or Crash Bros or Apex Legends (via mobile tethering) with the same kind of lag-free experience that you have at home even over Wi-Fi receive. But that was it. The power of the so-called 5G revolution occurs only when each device can use these speeds, not just a single device.

As far as 2019 is concerned, these are the main groups that can effectively leverage mobile 5G businesses that can use the full bandwidth to securely move huge files back and forth between different remote locations.

5G is still the future

Now, this does not mean that I'm on 5G, as the tech has a lot of future potential. Testing new technologies is fun, and if you adapt early, you can see first-hand how new platform ecosystems evolve over time. For 2019, however, it's important to know what mobile 5G really is: a glorified beta test. At best, it's like pre-ordering or financing a kickstarter that's more about hopes and dreams than something based on reality.

So, if you're someone who has cash left and you're curious about 5G – or is it the kind of person who likes to be "first" in YouTube videos – go ahead and immerse yourself in 5G , But for everyone else, you'll save a lot of money by waiting, and with the assumption of 5G phones for 2019 likely to be just 0.4 percent, you will not miss much.